Systems and methods for automated local story generation and curation

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods for automated local story generation and curation are described. In one example embodiment, a server computer receives content from client devices, and processes the content to identify content characteristics. Stories are then generated based on the characteristics of the received content, and the stories are communicated to client devices. In certain embodiments, selection at a client device of an individual piece of content within a story may further be used by the system to provide the client device with a sub-story that includes pieces of content sharing content characteristics with the characteristics of the selected image or video.

BACKGROUND

News stories have traditionally been presented to consumers in a heavilycontrolled and curated format. Early formats for news presentationincluded newspapers and magazines. Later formats included broadcastradio and television news. Traditional news sources are typicallyheavily associated with corporations or well-known persons that gatherand present the news stories. In the modern Internet era, many such newssources have fragmented, but core aspects of news gathering andpresentation often remain associated with professional journalistsgathering and sharing information in a way that is tied to an individualidentity. While such practices have been able to support some newsstructures with valuable analysis, the process for generating storieswhere select professionals filter information and generate stories istime consuming and introduces significant delay between an eventoccurring and presentation of information to a news consumer.

Systems and methods described herein relate to automated local storygeneration, curation, and presentation from received content.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Various ones of the appended drawings merely illustrate exampleembodiments of the present disclosure and should not be considered aslimiting its scope.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a networked system, according tosome example embodiments.

FIG. 2A illustrates aspects of server system operation receiving contentfor different geographic areas, in accordance with certain exampleembodiments.

FIG. 2B illustrates aspects of server system operation sending differentstories to different geographic areas, in accordance with certainexample embodiments.

FIG. 2C illustrates aspects of content origin areas and associated storyvisibility areas according to some embodiments.

FIG. 2D illustrates aspects of content origin areas and associated storyvisibility areas according to some embodiments.

FIG. 3A illustrates aspects of story generation, according to someexample embodiments.

FIG. 3B illustrates aspects of story generation, according to someexample embodiments.

FIG. 3C illustrates aspects of story generation, according to someexample embodiments.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating aspects of a method, according tosome example embodiments.

FIG. 5 illustrates aspects of a server system for automated local storygeneration and curation, according to some example embodiments.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating aspects of a method, according tosome example embodiments.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a softwarearchitecture that may be installed on a machine, according to someexample embodiments.

FIG. 8 illustrates an example user interface for a client deviceoperating an application, according to some example embodiments.

FIG. 9 illustrates a diagrammatic representation of a machine in theform of a computer system within which a set of instructions may beexecuted for causing the machine to perform any one or more of themethodologies discussed herein, according to an example embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Systems and methods described herein relate to automated local storygeneration, curation, and presentation. Various embodiments describedherein automatically generate stories from content received fromdifferent client devices such as smartphones. The stories are generatedbased on system trends and the characteristics of the received content.Story use trends may then be used to adjust how widely the story isavailable for viewing by system users.

“Content”, as described herein, refers to one or more images, videoclips, or multimedia clips captured by an electronic device, as well asany associated metadata descriptions. This includes metadata generatedby an electronic device capturing an image or video, as well as metadatathat may be associated later by other devices. A “piece of content”refers to an individual image or video clip captured by a client device.Content captured by such a client device may be sent individually via anetwork to other client devices as part of a social sharing network. A“content message” as referred to herein refers to the communication ofcontent between one or more users via the system. Content may also besent from a client device to a server system to be shared generally withother system users. Embodiments described herein relate to methods ofgrouping such public content from different sources into stories.

A “story” as described herein is a set of content. A story may begenerated from pieces of content that are related in a variety ofdifferent ways, as is described in more detail throughout this document.For example, a “global” story is a story that is available to all of theusers in a system. A “main” story is a story that is initially sent toan individual user based on a system's initial story generation process.A main story acts as an initial filter group of similar pieces ofcontent that may be of interest to a user. A “sub-story” is a story thatis sent to a user based on a selection of an image from a previousstory. A sub-story includes pieces of content that share imagecharacteristics with the selected image of the previous story.

An example system can operate by receiving pieces of content fromsmartphones or other client devices located all over the world. Whencontent is received by the system, it is analyzed to determine location,time, and content details. Content details can be determined by machinevision analysis of content to identify objects and other detailsrelating to the content. Image and video quality metrics can also begenerated based on an automatic analysis. A set of contentcharacteristics is then associated with the content based on the systemanalysis.

This example system then generates stories based on identified trendsand the content characteristics for content in the system. The differentstories are sent to different groups of client devices. Storiesgenerated by a system may include a set of images and/or video clipsselected based on: (1) whether the pieces of content were generatedwithin a certain proximity of each other or within a local area (e.g.within a particular geofence); (2) how recent the content is; (3) imagequality metrics; and (4) shared content characteristics (e.g. contentcharacteristics identified by machine vision such as cats, automobiles,sports, or other such content). Stories generated by the system are thenassigned to one or more user segments. Users may be assigned to one ormore user segments in a variety of ways. Some user segments may be basedon user location, while other user segments may be based on userinterest, such as an interest in sporting events, music, weather, pets,or any other such user or system identified interest areas. In variousembodiments, this user segment for a story may be adjusted over timebased on system trends associated with the content characteristics usedto generate a story (e.g. a spike in activity from a baseline or averagefor a location, content category, or other characteristic indicating anewsworthy event). Similarly, such trends may be used to generate newstories having content associated with a system trend. A device willthen receive access to stories that are associated with the device'suser segment (e.g. a device's location or an interest group associatedwith the device's account). In certain embodiments, this results in auser receiving stories focused on high-quality recent pieces of contentthat are generated close to a user. Stories that are older or generatedfrom content taken further away from a user's current location may beprovided to a user based on identified system trends. Various differentmetrics or different combinations of metrics may be used to select thestories available for presentation on a particular client device.

In some example embodiments, content is received by a system andprocessed using machine vision to identify content characteristics.Rather than stories being generated automatically, a story tool (e.g.computing device or software tool) may be used by a system operator toselect content for inclusion in a story. The story may then be madeavailable to an initial user segment. Based on system feedback asdescribed herein, the system may then adjust which user segments mayview the system operator generated story by automatically making thestory available to a greater number of client devices if system feedbackidentifies trends associated with the story based on viewing,screenshotting, and other metrics.

When a user accesses a story on the user's client device, the user canview the content as part of the story and select an individual piece ofcontent from a story. When a piece of content is selected from thestory, this selection is communicated to the system. The system thenprovides the device with a sub-story based on the contentcharacteristics of the selected piece of content. This process cancontinue with the user selecting another piece of content from thesub-story, with a resulting subsequent sub-story being sent to theuser's client device. A provided user interface allows a user tonavigate back to any earlier viewed story, and to continue viewingadditional pieces of content from the earlier story. At any pointanother piece of content can be selected, resulting in an additionalsub-story associated with characteristics of the newly selected content.

In certain embodiments, anonymous information about story viewing,selection of pieces of content within an individual story, andscreenshotting of content on a client device is fed back to the systemto influence the system trends that impact how stories are assigned touser segments. This feedback mechanism can also be integrated with thesystem trends associated with incoming pieces of content mentioned aboveto influence the selection of pieces of content for future storygeneration (e.g. when a story is generated or not generated). In certainembodiments, the system trends may be used to adjust assigned usersegments for a story based on geographic tiers. In one such embodiment,a global tier is the top tier of the system, encompassing the entireworld. Below the global tier is a country tier, with the country tierdivided into a geographic area for each country participating in thesystem. Below the country tier is the state tier, then a city tier, thena local tier, etc. When a story is generated by such a system, it isautomatically assigned to a user segment for a local geographic areaassociated with the location where the content was generated. In otherwords, the story is initially available only to devices within the areawhere the pieces of content were generated. Based on the system trends,a story can be assigned or “moved up” the tiers to a higher tier area,so that the story is visible beyond the local geographic area where thecontent for the story were generated. At the highest global tier, astory may be visible to all devices in a system, or may be visible tothe broadest user segment possible for a particular story. As a systemidentifies increasing interest in a story, the story is pushed up tohigher and higher geographic tiers. As the system identifies decreasinginterest in the category, the story will similarly be pushed down tolower geographic tiers.

Certain embodiments of such a system may periodically assess newlyreceived content to determine which pieces of content best representcertain system categories associated with a story. As new contentmessages associated with a story are received by the system, they may beadded to a story, or used to update or replace some previously receivedpieces of content in a story.

In a system that operates with geographic tiers, the number and type ofstories for different users in different geographic areas can have adifferent mix of stories presented for selection in a user interface ofan application operating on a device. One set of stories made availableto a first client device in a first local area could include all localstories. Another set of stories available in a different local areacould include eight local stories, four city stories, one state story,no country stories, and two global stories. In certain embodiments thismix of geographic representation in the stories available on a singledevice change over time and for different user segments in differentlocal areas based on the particular characteristics of the pieces ofcontent available to a system. Other embodiments may not use fixedgeographic tiers, but may assign an area to a story based on contentcharacteristics or metadata associated with content in a story. Forexample, in certain embodiments a set of content for a story may alloccur within a 10 meter radius, and the system may determine that thestory will only be of interest to users that are very close to thislocation. Rather than making the story available to all users within alarger geographic area, the system may automatically assign an area tothe story, and may make the story available only to users in the areathat was generated and assigned for that story.

As a particular example of a system using geographic tiers, in oneembodiment a sports arena may be assigned its own local geographic areaor geofence. During a basketball game at the arena, users capturingcontent inside the arena have the option of sending content messages tothe system for public use in stories. The system analyzes the pieces ofcontent received and generates one or more stories for the system usersinside the arena. The system may, for example, simply generate one storyfor the local geographic area that includes a mix of pictures and videosof the game and of fans attending the game.

If the game is particularly exciting the system may identify a trend.For example if the game is a playoff game that is tied with 10 secondsleft, the system may see a spike in content messages sent from insidethe arena for use in public stories. Based on this spike, a story fromthe arena is temporarily assigned a larger area (or higher tier), e.g.,to state or national level visibility area, such that distant userswithin the new visibility area are provided access to the story from thearena. If interest in the game and the associated story remains highafter the ending of the game, this story may remain at the higher tier,geographic visibility level based on viewing rates, screenshottingrates, or other system feedback received from client devices.

These metrics may be generated in different ways as a user navigates thesystem to view content within different stories. For example, if a userhas access to the story from the arena, and the story includes a pictureor video of a game-winning play from the arena, the user may select thiscontent. The system then generates a sub-story for the user based on thecharacteristics of this content. For example, the generated sub-storymay include pictures or videos showing gameplay highlights. If a userselects content from this sub-story showing a player dunking, a secondsub-story may be generated and sent to this user showing pictures orvideos of this player generally as well as other content showing dunkswith other players. Selecting a piece of content from the secondsub-story including the same player may result in a third sub-story thatincludes only content featuring the selected player. Selecting a secondsub-story picture or video showing a different player dunking may resultin an alternate third sub-story with content showing dunk highlightsfrom the entire basketball season. Any screenshots of pictures or videostaken by the user, along with viewing time, percentage of pictures orvideo in a particular story viewed, or other such metrics can be sent tothe system as feedback to establish baseline values for these metricsand to identify trends and influence a current user segment assignmentfor related stories as well as system operations for the generation offuture stories.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a networked system 100 accordingto some example embodiments. System 100 includes client device 110,client device 120, server system 150, and network 140 that is used toconvey communications between client devices 110 and 120 and the serversystem 150. Client devices 110 and 120 may be any smartphone, tablet,phablet, laptop computer, network-enabled camera, or any other suchnetwork enabled device. Client devices 110, 120 may include a cameradevice for capturing content, or may be coupled to a separate cameradevice that is used to capture the content prior to sending to otherclient device 110, 120 for storage. Some embodiments may thereforeinclude a wearable devices such as a pendant with an integrated camerathat is coupled to a client device 110, 120. Other embodiments mayinclude other associated devices with an integrated camera that may bewearable such as a watch, eyeglasses, clothing such as a hat or jacketwith integrated electronics, a clip-on electronic device, or any othersuch devices that may communicate or be integrated with a client device110, 120. Client devices 110 and 120 are connected to server system 150via network 140. The network 140 may include any combination of wiredand wireless connections. This may include cellular access networks,access point interfaces to the internet, or any other such networks 140or network elements. For example, client device 110 may interface withnetwork 140 using a Long Term Evolution (LTE) cellular network tocommunicate with server system 150, while client device 120 may use aWi-Fi access point to interface with network 140 and communicate withserver system 150. Server system 150 may be one or more computingdevices as part of a service or network computing system. In certainembodiments, particularly embodiments with large numbers of clientdevices 110, 120 interfacing with a server system 150 from widelydifferent locations all over the globe, server system 150 may be adistributed network 140 of server computers that are similarly widelydistributed, and which communicate with each other via network 140. Insome embodiments, client devices 110 and 120, as well as and anyelements of server system 150 and network 140, may be implemented usingelements of software architecture 702 or machine 900 described in FIGS.7 and 9.

Networked system 100 then may be used in communication of contentmessages from client devices 110, 120 to a system 150, and communicationof stories from the system 150 to the client devices 110, 120. As shownin FIG. 1, client device 110 communicates content message 112 to serversystem 150, and client device 110 receives stories 114 from serversystem 150. In addition to this functionality used for the embodimentsdescribed herein, client device 110 may additionally receive privatepieces of content and communications from other users, and may convey apersonal story to server system 150, with the personal story includingimages and or video from content messages 112 generated by client device110 or another device coupled to client device 110. Similarly, clientdevice 120 sends content messages 122 and receives stories 124, and mayadditionally perform other actions.

FIG. 2A illustrates aspects of server system 250 receiving contentmessages from different geographic areas in accordance with certainexample embodiments. FIG. 2B illustrates aspects of server system 250sending different stories to different geographic areas in accordancewith certain example embodiments. FIGS. 2C and 2D illustrate howdifferent stories may be assigned different visibility areas. Incontrast to FIG. 1 that shows two client devices 110 and 120, FIGS. 2A-Dshow an abstract of the client side of a system where thousands ormillions of client devices 110, 120 in different areas may beinteracting with a server system 250.

Instead of individual client devices 110, 120, FIGS. 2A and 2B show asimple user segment representation with two local geographic areas 204and 206, which are the lowest tier areas in this example. Stategeographic area 202 is one tier above local geographic areas 204 and206, and state geographic area 202 encompasses these two local areas.This is a simplified representation for example purposes. Otherembodiments may include many more tiers, and large numbers of adjacentlowest tier local geographic areas. As described above, one embodimentmay include a local tier, a city tier, a regional tier, a state tier, anational tier, and a top level global tier. A lowest level local tiermay be made up of local geographic areas of widely varying size andshape. A single local geographic area may be a public park, multiplecity blocks, a university campus, a sports area, a shopping mall, abeach, a single building, or any such local area. In certainembodiments, geofences are used to define local areas. Such geofencesmay be tracked by aspects of a network system 100 including locationsystems within client devices such as client devices 110 and 120,network based location systems as part of network 140, separate locationsystems such as global positioning systems (GPS), or any combination ofthese or other location systems.

In other embodiments, rather than considering set geofences or groups ofusers, a system may generate stories for each client deviceindividually. In such an embodiment, whenever a user navigates to astories interface within an application operating on a client device,the client device communicates a current location to the server system250. The location of the device or other device provided information atthat time can be used to generate a list of stories for the device.

In the illustrated example of FIG. 2A, the client devices within firstlocal geographic area 204 are grouped together and communicate 1000content messages 260 to server system 250 in a first time period. Thecontent associated with these content messages is shown as SF1 throughSF1000. During the same time period, 10000 content messages 262containing individual clips or images are sent to server system 250 byclient devices within the second local geographic area 206, illustratedas content LA1 through LA10000. This volume of content is sufficient tooverwhelm an individual user. Therefore, server system 250 operates as acurator to filter the content messages and provide a select set of thepictures and videos from the content messages as one or more stories.

In various embodiments, this curation function may be fulfilled by aserver system 250 in different ways. At a high level, one exampleembodiment segments users by local area. Stories for a client device110, 120 are generated from the most recent content messages that weregenerated in the client device's current local area. Such local contentmessages for a story can further be filtered based on image quality andimage content. Image content may be used to prevent excess contentduplication, to provide a variety of different content, to providecontent identified as newsworthy (e.g. images associated with famouspeople), or based on any other such content filtering selections. Imagecontent may also be analyzed to identify content duplication, and toavoid placing extremely similar content (e.g. videos of the same eventfrom similar angles) in a single story. Additionally, the server system250 can analyze trends associated with incoming content messages fromother local areas to generate stories based on the trends identified bythe system. Additional details related to server curation and storygeneration are discussed below with respect to FIG. 6.

FIG. 2B then illustrates a first story set 292 being made available toall client devices within the first local geographic area 204.Similarly, second story set 294 includes stories visible to all clientdevices within the second local geographic area 206. Second story set294 is shown as including three stories, with all three storiesgenerated from content messages originating in the second localgeographic area 206. These stories of the second story set include LAstories 291-293. First story set 292 is shown as including two storiesgenerated from content messages originating within local geographic area204, SF story 281 and SF story 282. First story set 292 also includes astory generated from content messages originating within localgeographic area 206, LA story 291. As described above, LA story 291 maybe identified by server system 250 analyzing system trends, where alarger than normal number of story views, screenshots, incomingadditional content messages, or other system trends identify LA story291 as a story to be made visible to a larger user segment.

FIG. 2C illustrates an example embodiment of how another story can begenerated by server system 250 and made available to different usersegments over time. As illustrated by FIG. 2C, content messages arereceived from content origin area 260 and are used to generate firststory 261. At an initial time T1 when story 261 is first made availableto system devices, the story is only visible to devices within T1 storyvisibility area 262, which is essentially the same area as the contentorigin area 260 where the content messages originated. Over time, theserver system 250 identifies feedback baseline values that are used toestablish system trends that deviate from baseline values and thusindicate interest in certain content. The server system 250 continuouslyexpands the visibility area associated with the first story 261 based onsuch trends. At a second time T2, the story is visible in a regionalarea, shown as T2 story visibility area 264. At time T3, the first story261 is visible at a state level, shown as T3 story visibility area 266.At time T4, the story 261 is visible to all devices at a country level,shown as T4 story visibility area 268. For example, such a storyexpansion over time may occur if a music festival with popular bands istaking place in content origin area 260, with a spike in contentmessages from that area occurring during the festival. Analysis byserver system 250 identifies the spike in content messages, andautomatically generates a story with pictures and video identified bymachine vision as being content from the festival. The story isinitially only visible in the local area, but is frequently viewed andscreenshotted, and so is promoted to a regional/city story. The festivalstory is similarly popular as a regional story, and is promoted again tobe a state story, and then promoted again to be a national story, sothat anyone in the United States is able to view the story. After acertain amount of time, the story may be removed from the system andreplaced with other stories. In some embodiments, this may occur withsystem trends determining that the story is less popular, and moving thestory back down through the tiers until it is back to being a localstory. In other embodiments, the story may simply be removed from thesystem after a certain period of time has passed.

By contrast, FIG. 2D illustrates aspects of an embodiment for storieswhere the user segment does not change over time. FIG. 2D shows that thecontent origin area 260 is also the local area where content messagesoriginate for a second story 271. System baseline values and trendsdetermine, however, that an insufficient level of interest is generatedand thus the second story 271 is not promoted to a larger area. As aresult, for times T1 through T4, the visibility area for second story271 remains the same area. For example, if a water main breaks,resulting in a sudden spike of content messages from a flooded area nearthe break, the system may analyze the spike of related incoming contentmessages and automatically generate a story associated with the watermain break. If the story does not generate sufficient interest to bepromoted, the visibility area will remain the local area around wherethe content is captured, and only local viewers will have access to viewthe second story 271. This story will then eventually be replaced byother stories, and will be removed from the system.

Third story 275 accepts content from the entire national area as contentorigin area 274 and maintains this national area as T1-T4 third storyvisibility area 276. For example, on a national holiday such as the 4thof July in the United States, all content messages received in contentorigin area 274 may be processed using machine vision to identifyfireworks images or other holiday images. Such a story may be triggeredby a calendar event or a system setting matched to the holiday, or sucha story may be generated in response to the system identifying a trendor a set of content messages meeting certain thresholds for generationof a national story. These content messages may automatically be used togenerate third story 275, and third story 277 is visible from the entirenational area during the holiday.

As mentioned above, the stories available to a device vary over time,and different sets of stories are available to different devices. In theexample embodiment of FIGS. 2C and 2D, at time T1, devices outside T1story visibility area 262 are able to view third story 277, but notfirst story 261 or second story 271, while devices inside area 262 areable to view all three of these stories. This changes over time, and attime T4, all users can view first story 261 and third story 271, butonly users within area 262 are still able to view all three of thesestories. Additionally, other stories may be provided to differentdevices, such that some additional stories may be available to users inother local geographies that are not available in T1 story visibilityarea 262. Similarly, story sets 292 and 294 are each illustrated asincluding three stories. In various embodiments, the story set availableto a device at a particular time may include any number of stories. Incertain embodiments, a maximum number of stories may be enforced by aserver system 250, while in other embodiments, any number of storiesmeeting system thresholds for story generation and presentation may beoffered to a user at any given time.

FIG. 3A illustrates an embodiment of a user interface for a clientdevice 300. Client device 300 shows user selectable interface areas 301for each story in first story set 292, including SF story 281, SF story282, and LA story 291. Additional stories interface areas may beprovided by scrolling up and down. Each interface area may provide basicdetails or sample images associated with each story. In certainembodiments a story or part of a story may be provided to client device300 prior to a selection of an interface area 301. In other embodiments,images of a story are communicated from a server system such as serversystem 250 following selection of a particular interface area 301.

FIG. 3C illustrates one embodiment of an interface for viewing storiesand sub-stories such as the stories shown in FIG. 3B. In FIG. 3C, when astory or sub-story is received for viewing on device 300, an individualpiece of content is displayed within content viewing area 397. In theembodiment of FIG. 3C, a user has navigated to content LA 84 (eitherimage or video) of second sub-story 320. Input areas are visible for areturn to previously navigated stories. As shown, input 398 is availableto switch to LA story 291, and input 399 is available to switch to firstsub-story 310. If either input 398 or 399 is selected, the first pictureor video of the selected story will be displayed within content viewingarea 397. The viewer may then view some or all of the pieces of contentwithin a story, and may either navigate to a new sub-story by selectingthe picture or video displayed in content viewing area 397, or mayreturn to a previous story. In further embodiments, a user may navigatebetween various stories and sub-stories using other user interfaceinputs. For example, a user in a sub-story may swipe up on contentdisplayed on a device to return to a previously viewed story in someembodiments. Similarly, if a user has previously navigated back to apreviously viewed story by swiping up, some embodiments may enable aswipe down user input to navigate to a sub-story. Other embodiments mayuse drop-down menus or menu lists of recently viewed stories that areaccessed by a physical button on a client device to enable navigationbetween multiple different stories and sub-stories.

FIG. 3B then illustrates aspects of story generation according to someexample embodiments. After a story is selected by a user interfaceaction with an interface area 301, a story is displayed on client device300. A user may then view various stories and sub stories. FIG. 3B showsLA story 291, which may be selected from the interface area 301 of FIG.3A. Following such a selection, pieces of content from LA story 291 maybe viewed. As illustrated, LA story 291 includes images or videos fromcontent messages including content LA 7, LA 55, and LA 986-989. As animage from content LA 55 is displayed on a screen of device 300, theuser may select the image from content LA 55. This selection iscommunicated from client device 300 to a server system, and the serversystem responds with first sub-story 310. First sub-story 310 includesvideos or images from content LA 50-LA 57 having characteristics similarto one or more characteristics of content LA 55. After viewing some orall images of first sub-story 310 in an interface similar to theinterface shown in FIG. 3c , the user may navigate back to LA story 291.When viewing video LA7, the user may then select image LA 7, and secondsub-story 320 will be received from the server system in response to theselection of image LA 7.

The user may then view some or all videos or images from contentmessages LA 80 through LA 84 of second sub-story 320 before navigatingback to viewing the content of LA story 291.

For example, if LA story 291 includes videos of flooding and image LA 55shows flood water in a local geographic area, a communication of thisselection is sent to server system 250. Server system 250 then respondswith a first sub-story 310 having content that share contentcharacteristics with the selected image LA 55. In this case, all contentassociated with content messages LA 50 through LA 57 may includepictures or videos showing a specific area from different angles, aswell as older pictures or videos of the specific area before theflooding occurred.

The user may then return to the original story to continue viewingcontent in LA story 291, and may select an additional image or videowithin LA story 291. If the user then selects a video from contentmessage LA 7 of a dog walking through the flood water of the event thatinitiated the creation of LA story 291, then this selection iscommunicated to server system 250, and the server system 250 respondswith second sub-story 320. Based on the video of the dog and the floodwater images from content messages, LA80-LA84 may include images orvideos of dogs. This process can be recursive, such that a user can thenselect an image or video within a sub-story, and receive an additionalsub-story. For example, if a user selects an image or video from contentcommunication LA80 showing a particular type of dog, then anothersub-story may be received including content including that type of dogfrom different times or from other areas. If a user selects a piece ofcontent from content communication LA84 showing a video of dogs playingaround flood water, then another sub-story may be generated showing onlydog content with dogs playing around water. Additional details relatedto selection of content for sub-stories are discussed below with respectto FIG. 6.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating aspects of a method 400, according tosome example embodiments. For illustrative purposes, method 400 isdescribed with respect to networked system 100 of FIG. 1. It is to beunderstood that method 400 may be practiced with other systemconfigurations in other embodiments.

In operation 404, a server system 150 receives content messages 112, 122from a client device 110, 120 via network 140. In operation 406, thecontent received in operation 404 is processed to identify contentcharacteristics. This operation 406 may identify a time at which thecontent was generated, a location where it was generated, or otherassociated time and location information. If more than one piece ofcontent (e.g. multiple video clips or pictures) are received, then atime period may be identified. Server system 150 may also include amachine vision module which is configured to identify objects within thecontent. In certain embodiments, a machine vision module may include adictionary of objects and object arrangements. Based on the objectsand/or object arrangements identified by the machine vision module, oneor more values may then be assigned as content values as part of a setof characteristics associated with the piece of content by theprocessing of operation 406. Additionally, image or video quality valuesmay be assigned to content. Such values may include blurriness values,brightness values, color profile values, contrast values, or any othersuch quality values. In embodiments where content include video clipshaving different frame rates or other characteristics unique to videoclips, this information may also be used to assign quality values aspart of a set of content characteristics.

In operation 408, the content received in operation 404 is processedwith other incoming pieces of content to identify system trends. Forexample, a server system 150 may keep a record of image content valuesassigned by system processing, and how frequently (e.g. a contentreceipt rate) content with a particular content value is received. Suchfrequency and receipt rate metrics may be maintained anonymously byserver system 150 for any content characteristic values, and used toestablish expected baseline values that are associated with normalsystem activity for particular dates, times, events, or other periodsthat may be identified within a system. When the server system 150identifies a spike (e.g. a variation from the expected baseline) in areceipt rate of content associated with a particular contentcharacteristic value, this can be identified by the server system 150 asa system trend. Selection of particular pieces of content as part ofstory viewing may also be tracked by a system. When the server system150 receives user selections associated with a piece of content andsends an associated sub-story to a client device, this may be tracked todetermine system trends. If a particular piece of content is selectedfrequently, this information may be used as system feedback forselecting the piece of content for future stories, or for including itin stories for a larger geographic area. In various embodiments, anapplication operating on a client device may also gather informationabout how a user interacts with certain pieces of content or stories.For example, the application may record how frequently or for how long aparticular story or piece of content within a story is viewed. Theapplication may also track how many images or videos within a story areviewed prior to the user navigating away from a story. This informationmay be collected and sent to server system 150 for use in determiningtrends. For all of the above, in different embodiments, server 150 mayuse different statistical analyses with associated thresholds orcriteria to trigger the identification of a system trend.

In operation 410, the system trends identified in operation 408 and theindividual content characteristics for the piece of content identifiedin operation 406 are used to determine if a story should be generated orupdated.

If a story is being generated for the first time, a user segment orvisibility area is assigned to the story. This may involve anidentification at server system 150 of user segments with sharedcharacteristics to be used for story segmentation. This may simplyinvolve assigning a story as visible within a geofence where contentfrom the story originated. Grouping users reduces processing loads onserver system 150 by reducing processing resources needed to determinewhich stories are available to which devices. In other embodiments,stories may be generated on a per client device basis, without such usersegments. In such embodiments, stories may be considered individuallycurated for single client devices 110, 120. One example embodiment of auser segment is a user segment based on area tiers as described above.In other embodiments, user segments may be based on system supportedinterest groups. For example, the system may allow a user to indicate aninterest in sports. In such an example, basketball, football, soccer,baseball, hockey may correspond to the higher level tiers, withdifferent leagues and/or levels corresponding to lower level tiers. Whenstories containing content related to basketball are generated, a user'sdevice may be provided access to that story regardless of where theuser's device is located. In some embodiments, this interest indicationmay be used as system trend data to trigger the system to generate morestories related to basketball.

If a story is being updated, then feedback information received atserver system 150 is analyzed to determine if a story should be morewidely available or less widely available based on system metrics forstory visibility.

In some embodiments, a user provides one or more system settings toidentify categories that a user is interested in. These categories arethen used by the system to identify user segments, which are groups ofusers that have expressed interest in shared categories or are otherwisegrouped together by the system. The system can independently generatestory sets for a user's devices based on category selections. In otherembodiments, content viewing characteristics associated with a clientdevice or a user account may be used to generate or update interestprofiles. This information may be used not only to generate story setsfor the user and other users with similar profiles, but this informationmay also be used as system feedback for determining trends in thesystem. Other embodiments may particularly exclude the use of individualdevice or account profiles for privacy purposes, and may only use datareceived from client devices that is stored anonymously.

Additionally, in some embodiments as new content is received that isassociated with categories that were used to generate a story, then thepieces of content for a story may be adjusted. In certain embodiments,new content is appended to the end of a story. In other embodiments,content may be both added and removed from a story based on thresholdvalues for inclusion in a particular story. When a story is generated orupdated as part of operation 410, the new story is made available toindividual client devices 110, 120. In some embodiments, thecommunication of the story to a particular client device 110, 120 mayoccur automatically as part of a push from server system 150 to theclient device 110, 120. In other embodiments, a client device 110, 120generates a request for a story as part of application operations at theclient device 110, 120. For example a user navigating to a storyinterface within an application may automatically generate a requestfrom the client device 110, 120 to server system 150 for the main storyassociated with the client device's 110, 120 user segment.

Operations 404 through 410 will repeat during system operation. Incertain embodiments, a server system 150 may aggregate content over aset period of time, or may aggregate a set number of pieces of contentbefore processing the content and updating a story or generating a newstory. In other embodiments, updates and new stories for a user segmentmay occur only when a client device 110, 120 associated with a usersegment requests a list of available stories. In further embodiments,criteria associated with incoming content may be used to trigger anupdate or new story generation. For example, during periods when largenumbers of content messages are received that are related withcategories or events identified as trending, a new story or a storyupdate may be triggered. In other embodiments, various combinations ofthese update periods and triggers may be used, along with any otherpossible criteria for initiating an update to a story.

As these operations above repeat to generate new stories and updateexisting stories, a client device 110, 120 may periodically send acommunication to server system 150 identifying a user selection of apicture or video with a story, as illustrated by operation 412. Afterreceipt of such communication in operation 412, in operation 414 asub-story is identified by the server system 150, with the sub-storycontaining content sharing content characteristics with the selectedpicture or video. This sub-story may be generated as the request isreceived, or may be generated by the system as the piece of content isinitially placed in a story. The sub-story is then communicated to theclient device 110, 120 that sent the communication. This process ofoperations 412 through 416 may similarly repeat with the client device110, 120 selecting different pieces of content or navigating topreviously received stories, and the server system 150 communicating theassociated stories and content to the client device 110, 120.

FIG. 5 illustrates aspects of a server system 550 for automated localstory generation and curation, according to some example embodiments. Invarious embodiments, server system 550 may be used as an implementationof server system 150 or server system 250. The example server system 550includes input and output (I/O) module 552, content characteristicanalysis module 554, machine vision module 556, content characteristicdatabase 558, trend analysis module 560, and story generation module562.

I/O module 552 may include any hardware, firmware, or software elementsneeded to send and receive content and stories to client devices 110,120 via a network 140. Content characteristic analysis module 554 mayinclude devices, processors, and software to analyze images frompictures and frames of video clips, and then determine contentcharacteristics, including details about when and where a picture orvideo was generated. In certain embodiments, content characteristicanalysis module 554 may be implemented as a plurality of differentmodules, each analyzing a different content characteristic, includingany content characteristic described herein.

Machine vision module 556 describes a particular module that may be usedto identify content characteristics based on the content of an image orimages in a video. Machine vision module 556 includes hardware,firmware, and/or software for analyzing and understanding content. Inone embodiment, machine vision module 556 is associated with adictionary comprising image and video content values. Objects identifiedin images of a piece of content and the arrangement of the identifiedobjects therein may be used by machine vision module 556, in such anembodiment, to select one or more content values from the dictionary ascontent characteristics. For example, a simple such machine visionmodule 556 may identify a ball in an image, and select the values balland game as content characteristics. A more complex module may identifythe type of ball as a basketball, and include “basketball” as acharacteristic value. A still more complex machine vision module 556 mayidentify a basketball, a crowd, a court color, and an elevatedperspective of the court to identify “professional basketball game” and“basketball arena” as content values for the content. The same complexmachine vision module 556 may identify a basketball, a park background,and a concrete court surface and associate “amateur basketball game” and“playground basketball” as content values for the content.

These content values generated by machine vision module 556 can then bestored in content characteristic database 558 along with othercharacteristic values. Such characteristic values can include: one ormore content values (i.e., an identification of what's in the content);a generation time; a generation time period; a generation location; ageneration area; one or more quality values, any metadata valueassociated with content, an identifier for a particular piece ofcontent, or any other such values. In some embodiments, a copy ofcontent may be stored in content characteristic database 558 withlocation information, capture time information, and any other suchinformation about a piece of content. In certain embodiments, contentcharacteristic database 558 may anonymously store details about contentuse. For example, client devices 110, 120 can communicate details aboutpresentation of the content on a screen of the device, and aboutscreenshots taken of the content. Anonymous metrics about how often apiece of content is viewed as part of a story, how long the content isviewed for, and how frequently screenshots are taken may then bemeasured by server system 550, as part of analysis by contentcharacteristic analysis module 554, with the resulting data stored incontent characteristic database 558.

Trend analysis module 560 may then use details from contentcharacteristic database 558 to identify patterns associated with contentcharacteristics. Trend analysis module 560 may track how frequentlymachine vision module 556 associates content with the content value“basketball.” Trend analysis module 560 can also track contentcharacteristics associated with location, times of day, times of year,holidays, and other such characteristics in addition to contentcharacteristics. Further, multiple characteristics may be trackedtogether to identify complex patterns.

Story generation module 562 may then use information about pieces ofcontent from content characteristic database 558 as well as informationabout trends from trend analysis module 560 to select particularpictures or videos for an automatically generated story. In variousembodiments, story generation module 562 may use complex scoring,weighting, and other rules in generating a story. For example, certainembodiments may require that all pieces of content meet a qualitythreshold unless a trend having certain threshold characteristics isidentified and all content associated with the trend are below thequality threshold. Another embodiment may weight story generation basedon a number of stories currently available in a local geographic area.In still further embodiments, any number of complex rules may be appliedtogether as part of story generation to filter images and videos for astory based on time, location, content, and quality.

Similarly, when a user selects a piece of content in a story, if asingle input is provided, the system may select content for a sub-storyusing similar rules. For example, if a selected piece of content isassociated with six different content characteristics, the system mayattempt to provide images or videos for the sub-story having a varietyof each of the six different content characteristics. Selection of apiece of content in the sub-story that shares two of the original sixcharacteristics may then result in a second story that includes contenthaving those two shared characteristics. Certain embodiments may allowcontent in sub-stories to be older or further away from a requestingclient device 110, 120, while other systems may maintain strict limitson how far away and how recently pieces of content were generated. Incertain embodiments, content selection may provide a user interfacelisting content characteristics, and a user may select which contentcharacteristics are to be used to generate a sub-story.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating aspects of a method 600, according tosome example embodiments. Method 600 is a method performed by a serversystem 550. For the purposes of illustration, method 600 is describedwith respect to server system 550. In other embodiments, method 600 maybe performed by various other server system implementations.

Method 600 begins with operation 602 receiving, at an I/O module 552 ofserver system 550, a plurality of communications from a plurality ofclient devices 110, 120. Each communication includes a piece of content,a location associated with the content, and a time associated with thecontent.

Operation 604 then involves processing, by the content characteristicanalysis module 554 of the server system 550, each content communicationfrom the plurality of communications to determine a set of contentcharacteristics for each piece of content.

Operation 606 then involves generating, using a story generation module562 of server system 550, at least a first story set 292, where thefirst story set 292 includes a first plurality of content from theplurality of communications, and where the first plurality of contentfor the first story set 292 are selected based on the set of contentcharacteristics for each piece of content of the first plurality ofcontent. In certain embodiments, content characteristics areadditionally identified using machine vision module 556 to identifycontent values. Additional embodiments of method 600 may also involveperforming a trend analysis associated with one or more contentcharacteristic values using trend analysis module 560, and a story maybe generated based on trend analysis and content characteristics.

While method 400 and method 600 each present a set of operations in aparticular order, each of these methods may be implemented withoperations in different orders, or with additional operations includedbetween the described operations. Other methods, including a variety ofother system implementations and operations, are also possible in otherembodiments.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram 700 illustrating architecture of software 702,which can be installed on any one or more of the devices describedabove. For example, in various embodiments, client devices 110 and 120and server systems 150, 250, and 550 may be implemented using some orall of the elements of software 702. FIG. 7 is merely a non-limitingexample of a software architecture, and it will be appreciated that manyother architectures can be implemented to facilitate the functionalitydescribed herein. In various embodiments, the software 702 isimplemented by hardware such as machine 900 of FIG. 9 that includesprocessors 910, memory 930, and I/O components 950. In this examplearchitecture, the software 702 can be conceptualized as a stack oflayers where each layer may provide a particular functionality. Forexample, the software 702 includes layers such as an operating system704, libraries 706, frameworks 708, and applications 710. Operationally,the applications 710 invoke application programming interface (API)calls 712 through the software stack and receive messages 714 inresponse to the API calls 712, consistent with some embodiments.

In various implementations, the operating system 704 manages hardwareresources and provides common services. The operating system 704includes, for example, a kernel 720, services 722, and drivers 724. Thekernel 720 acts as an abstraction layer between the hardware and theother software layers, consistent with some embodiments. For example,the kernel 720 provides memory management, processor management (e.g.,scheduling), component management, networking, and security settings,among other functionality. The services 722 can provide other commonservices for the other software layers. The drivers 724 are responsiblefor controlling or interfacing with the underlying hardware, accordingto some embodiments. For instance, the drivers 724 can include displaydrivers, camera drivers, BLUETOOTH® or BLUETOOTH® Low Energy drivers,flash memory drivers, serial communication drivers (e.g., UniversalSerial Bus (USB) drivers), WI-FI® drivers, audio drivers, powermanagement drivers, and so forth.

In some embodiments, the libraries 706 provide a low-level commoninfrastructure utilized by the applications 710. The libraries 706 caninclude system libraries 730 (e.g., C standard library) that can providefunctions such as memory allocation functions, string manipulationfunctions, mathematic functions, and the like. In addition, thelibraries 706 can include API libraries 732 such as media libraries(e.g., libraries to support presentation and manipulation of variousmedia formats such as Moving Picture Experts Group-4 (MPEG4), AdvancedVideo Coding (H.264 or AVC), Moving Picture Experts Group Layer-3 (MP3),Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) audio codec,Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG or JPG), or Portable NetworkGraphics (PNG)), graphics libraries (e.g., an OpenGL framework used torender in two dimensions (2D) and three dimensions (3D) in a graphiccontent on a display), database libraries (e.g., SQLite to providevarious relational database functions), web libraries (e.g., WebKit toprovide web browsing functionality), and the like. The libraries 706 canalso include a wide variety of other libraries 734 to provide many otherAPIs to the applications 710.

The frameworks 708 provide a high-level common infrastructure that canbe utilized by the applications 710, according to some embodiments. Forexample, the frameworks 708 provide various graphic user interface (GUI)functions, high-level resource management, high-level location services,and so forth. The frameworks 708 can provide a broad spectrum of otherAPIs that can be utilized by the applications 710, some of which may bespecific to a particular operating system 704 or platform.

In an example embodiment, the applications 710 include a homeapplication 750, a contacts application 752, a browser application 754,a book reader application 756, a location application 758, a mediaapplication 760, a messaging application 762, a game application 764,and a broad assortment of other applications such as a third partyapplication 766. According to some embodiments, the applications 710 areprograms that execute functions defined in the programs. Variousprogramming languages can be employed to create one or more of theapplications 710, structured in a variety of manners, such asobject-oriented programming languages (e.g., Objective-C, Java, or C++)or procedural programming languages (e.g., C or assembly language). In aspecific example, the third party application 766 (e.g., an applicationdeveloped using the ANDROID™ or IOS™ software development kit (SDK) byan entity other than the vendor of the particular platform) may bemobile software running on a mobile operating system such as IOS™,ANDROID™, WINDOWS® Phone, or another mobile operating system. In thisexample, the third party application 766 can invoke the API calls 712provided by the operating system 704 to facilitate functionalitydescribed herein.

Some embodiments may particularly include a story application 767. Incertain embodiments, this may be a stand-alone application that operatesto manage communications with a server system such as server system 150.In other embodiments, this functionality may be integrated with anotherapplication such as a social media application 760 or another suchapplication. Story application 767 may manage collection of contentusing a camera device of machine 900, communication with a server systemvia I/O components 950, and receipt and storage of received stories inmemory 930. Presentation of content and user inputs associated withcontent may be managed by story application 767 using differentframeworks 708, library 706 elements, or operating system 704 elementsoperating on a machine 900.

FIG. 8 illustrates an example mobile device 800 executing a mobileoperating system (e.g., IOS™, ANDROID™, WINDOWS® Phone, or other mobileoperating systems), consistent with some embodiments. Mobile device 800may implement software architecture 702 in certain embodiments. In oneembodiment, the mobile device 800 includes a touch screen operable toreceive tactile data from a user. The illustrated embodiment of mobiledevice 800 shows a plurality of images or videos presented as part of astory, with each piece of content have additional associated options andinformation. FIG. 8 particularly shows content 801 and associatedinformation 802. For example, content 801 may be similar to content LA7.Associated information 802 may include multiple different details orcontent characteristics associated with content 801. A user selectingcontent 801 to generate a sub-story may select from the contentcharacteristics or provide additional information related to the desiredcharacteristics for a sub-story based on additional information 802associated with content 801. The user may physically touch the mobiledevice 800, and in response to the touch, the mobile device 800 maydetermine tactile data such as touch location, touch force, or gesturemotion. This input may then be sent to a server system to generate asub-story and communicate the sub-story back to mobile device 800. Invarious example embodiments, the mobile device 800 displays a homescreen operable to launch applications 710 or otherwise manage variousaspects of the mobile device 800. In some example embodiments, the homescreen provides status information such as battery life, connectivity,or other hardware statuses. The user can activate user interfaceelements by touching an area occupied by a respective user interfaceelement. In this manner, the user interacts with the applications 710 ofthe mobile device 800. For example, touching the area occupied by aparticular icon included in the home screen causes launching of anapplication 710 corresponding to the particular icon.

In certain embodiments, content may be presented within the touch screenof mobile device 800 operating as a client device 110, 120, and a touchinput may be used to initiate a communication to a server system 550 torequest a sub-story, as described above.

Many varieties of applications 710 (also referred to as “apps”) can beexecuting on the mobile device 800, such as native applications (e.g.,applications programmed in Objective-C, Swift, or another suitablelanguage running on IOS™, or applications 710 programmed in Java runningon ANDROID™), mobile web applications (e.g., applications 710 written inHypertext Markup Language-5 (HTML5)), or hybrid applications (e.g., anative shell application 710 that launches an HTML5 session). Forexample, the mobile device 800 includes a messaging app, an audiorecording app, a camera app, a book reader app, a media app, a fitnessapp, a file management app, a location app, a browser app, a settingsapp, a contacts app, a telephone call app, or other apps (e.g., gamingapps, social networking apps, biometric monitoring apps). In anotherexample, the mobile device 800 includes a social messaging app such asSNAPCHAT® that, consistent with some embodiments, allows users to sendpublic content to a server system 550, and to receive stories from theserver system 550. Such an SNAPCHAT application 710 may additionallyenable exchange private ephemeral image and/or video content messages.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram illustrating components of a machine 900,according to some embodiments, able to read instructions from amachine-readable medium (e.g., a machine-readable storage medium) andperform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein.Specifically, FIG. 9 shows a diagrammatic representation of the machine900 in the example form of a computer system, within which instructions916 (e.g., software, a program, an application 710, an applet, an app,or other executable code) for causing the machine 900 to perform any oneor more of the methodologies discussed herein can be executed. Inalternative embodiments, the machine 900 operates as a standalone deviceor can be coupled (e.g., networked) to other machines. In a networkeddeployment, the machine 900 may operate in the capacity of a servermachine 550 or a client machine 110, 120 in a server-client networkenvironment, or as a peer machine in a peer-to-peer (or distributed)network environment. The machine 900 can comprise, but not be limitedto, a server computer, a client computer, a personal computer (PC), atablet computer, a laptop computer, a netbook, a set-top box (STB), apersonal digital assistant (PDA), an entertainment media system, acellular telephone, a smart phone, a mobile device 800, a wearabledevice (e.g., a smart watch), a smart home device (e.g., a smartappliance), other smart devices, a web appliance, a network router, anetwork switch, a network bridge, or any machine capable of executingthe instructions 916, sequentially or otherwise, that specify actions tobe taken by the machine 900. Further, while only a single machine 900 isillustrated, the term “machine” shall also be taken to include acollection of machines 900 that individually or jointly execute theinstructions 916 to perform any one or more of the methodologiesdiscussed herein.

In various embodiments, the machine 900 comprises processors 910, memory930, and I/O components 950, which can be configured to communicate witheach other via a bus 902. In an example embodiment, the processors 910(e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), a reduced instruction setcomputing (RISC) processor, a complex instruction set computing (CISC)processor, a graphics processing unit (GPU), a digital signal processor(DSP), an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), aradio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), another processor, or anysuitable combination thereof) include, for example, a processor 912 anda processor 914 that may execute the instructions 916. The term“processor” is intended to include multi-core processors 910 that maycomprise two or more independent processors 912, 914 (also referred toas “cores”) that can execute instructions 916 contemporaneously.Although FIG. 9 shows multiple processors 910, the machine 900 mayinclude a single processor 910 with a single core, a single processor910 with multiple cores (e.g., a multi-core processor 910), multipleprocessors 912, 914 with a single core, multiple processors 910, 912with multiples cores, or any combination thereof.

The memory 930 comprises a main memory 932, a static memory 934, and astorage unit 936 accessible to the processors 910 via the bus 902,according to some embodiments. The storage unit 936 can include amachine-readable medium 938 on which are stored the instructions 916embodying any one or more of the methodologies or functions describedherein. The instructions 916 can also reside, completely or at leastpartially, within the main memory 932, within the static memory 934,within at least one of the processors 910 (e.g., within the processor'scache memory), or any suitable combination thereof, during executionthereof by the machine 900. Accordingly, in various embodiments, themain memory 932, the static memory 934, and the processors 910 areconsidered machine-readable media 938.

As used herein, the term “memory” refers to a machine-readable medium938 able to store data temporarily or permanently and may be taken toinclude, but not be limited to, random-access memory (RAM), read-onlymemory (ROM), buffer memory, flash memory, and cache memory. While themachine-readable medium 938 is shown, in an example embodiment, to be asingle medium, the term “machine-readable medium” should be taken toinclude a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized ordistributed database, or associated caches and servers) able to storethe instructions 916. The term “machine-readable medium” shall also betaken to include any medium, or combination of multiple media, that iscapable of storing instructions (e.g., instructions 916) for executionby a machine (e.g., machine 900), such that the instructions 916, whenexecuted by one or more processors of the machine 900 (e.g., processors910), cause the machine 900 to perform any one or more of themethodologies described herein. Accordingly, a “machine-readable medium”refers to a single storage apparatus or device, as well as “cloud-based”storage systems or storage networks that include multiple storageapparatus or devices. The term “machine-readable medium” shallaccordingly be taken to include, but not be limited to, one or more datarepositories in the form of a solid-state memory (e.g., flash memory),an optical medium, a magnetic medium, other non-volatile memory (e.g.,erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM)), or any suitablecombination thereof. The term “machine-readable medium” specificallyexcludes non-statutory signals per se.

The I/O components 950 include a wide variety of components to receiveinput, provide output, produce output, transmit information, exchangeinformation, capture measurements, and so on. In general, it will beappreciated that the I/O components 950 can include many othercomponents that are not shown in FIG. 9. The I/O components 950 aregrouped according to functionality merely for simplifying the followingdiscussion, and the grouping is in no way limiting. In various exampleembodiments, the I/O components 950 include output components 952 andinput components 954. The output components 952 include visualcomponents (e.g., a display such as a plasma display panel (PDP), alight emitting diode (LED) display, a liquid crystal display (LCD), aprojector, or a cathode ray tube (CRT)), acoustic components (e.g.,speakers), haptic components (e.g., a vibratory motor), other signalgenerators, and so forth. The input components 954 include alphanumericinput components (e.g., a keyboard, a touch screen configured to receivealphanumeric input, a photo-optical keyboard, or other alphanumericinput components), point-based input components (e.g., a mouse, atouchpad, a trackball, a joystick, a motion sensor, or other pointinginstruments), tactile input components (e.g., a physical button, a touchscreen that provides location and force of touches or touch gestures, orother tactile input components), audio input components (e.g., amicrophone), and the like.

In some further example embodiments, the I/O components 950 includebiometric components 956, motion components 958, environmentalcomponents 960, or position components 962, among a wide array of othercomponents. For example, the biometric components 956 include componentsto detect expressions (e.g., hand expressions, facial expressions, vocalexpressions, body gestures, or eye tracking), measure biosignals (e.g.,blood pressure, heart rate, body temperature, perspiration, or brainwaves), identify a person (e.g., voice identification, retinalidentification, facial identification, fingerprint identification, orelectroencephalogram based identification), and the like. The motioncomponents 958 include acceleration sensor components (e.g.,accelerometer), gravitation sensor components, rotation sensorcomponents (e.g., gyroscope), and so forth. The environmental components960 include, for example, illumination sensor components (e.g.,photometer), temperature sensor components (e.g., one or morethermometers that detect ambient temperature), humidity sensorcomponents, pressure sensor components (e.g., barometer), acousticsensor components (e.g., one or more microphones that detect backgroundnoise), proximity sensor components (e.g., infrared sensors that detectnearby objects), gas sensor components (e.g., machine olfactiondetection sensors, gas detection sensors to detect concentrations ofhazardous gases for safety or to measure pollutants in the atmosphere),or other components that may provide indications, measurements, orsignals corresponding to a surrounding physical environment. Theposition components 962 include location sensor components (e.g., aGlobal Positioning System (GPS) receiver component), altitude sensorcomponents (e.g., altimeters or barometers that detect air pressure fromwhich altitude may be derived), orientation sensor components (e.g.,magnetometers), and the like.

Communication can be implemented using a wide variety of technologies.The I/O components 950 may include communication components 964 operableto couple the machine 900 to a network 980 or devices 970 via a coupling982 and a coupling 972, respectively. For example, the communicationcomponents 964 include a network interface component or another suitabledevice to interface with the network 980. In further examples,communication components 964 include wired communication components,wireless communication components, cellular communication components,near field communication (NFC) components, BLUETOOTH® components (e.g.,BLUETOOTH® Low Energy), WI-FI® components, and other communicationcomponents to provide communication via other modalities. The devices970 may be another machine 900 or any of a wide variety of peripheraldevices (e.g., a peripheral device coupled via a Universal Serial Bus(USB)).

Moreover, in some embodiments, the communication components 964 detectidentifiers or include components operable to detect identifiers. Forexample, the communication components 964 include radio frequencyidentification (RFID) tag reader components, NFC smart tag detectioncomponents, optical reader components (e.g., an optical sensor to detecta one-dimensional bar codes such as a Universal Product Code (UPC) barcode, multi-dimensional bar codes such as a Quick Response (QR) code,Aztec Code, Data Matrix, Dataglyph, MaxiCode, PDF417, Ultra Code,Uniform Commercial Code Reduced Space Symbology (UCC RSS)-2D bar codes,and other optical codes), acoustic detection components (e.g.,microphones to identify tagged audio signals), or any suitablecombination thereof. In addition, a variety of information can bederived via the communication components 964, such as location viaInternet Protocol (IP) geo-location, location via WI-FI® signaltriangulation, location via detecting a BLUETOOTH® or NFC beacon signalthat may indicate a particular location, and so forth.

Transmission Medium

In various example embodiments, one or more portions of the network 980can be an ad hoc network, an intranet, an extranet, a virtual privatenetwork (VPN), a local area network (LAN), a wireless LAN (WLAN), a widearea network (WAN), a wireless WAN (WWAN), a metropolitan area network(MAN), the Internet, a portion of the Internet, a portion of the publicswitched telephone network (PSTN), a plain old telephone service (POTS)network, a cellular telephone network, a wireless network, a WI-FI®network, another type of network, or a combination of two or more suchnetworks. For example, the network 980 or a portion of the network 980may include a wireless or cellular network, and the coupling 982 may bea Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) connection, a Global System forMobile communications (GSM) connection, or another type of cellular orwireless coupling. In this example, the coupling 982 can implement anyof a variety of types of data transfer technology, such as SingleCarrier Radio Transmission Technology (1xRTT), Evolution-Data Optimized(EVDO) technology, General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) technology,Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) technology, thirdGeneration Partnership Project (3GPP) including 3G, fourth generationwireless (4G) networks, Universal Mobile Telecommunications System(UMTS), High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), Worldwide Interoperability forMicrowave Access (WiMAX), Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard, othersdefined by various standard-setting organizations, other long rangeprotocols, or other data transfer technology.

In example embodiments, the instructions 916 are transmitted or receivedover the network 980 using a transmission medium via a network interfacedevice (e.g., a network interface component included in thecommunication components 964) and utilizing any one of a number ofwell-known transfer protocols (e.g., Hypertext Transfer Protocol(HTTP)). Similarly, in other example embodiments, the instructions 916are transmitted or received using a transmission medium via the coupling972 (e.g., a peer-to-peer coupling) to the devices 970. The term“transmission medium” shall be taken to include any intangible mediumthat is capable of storing, encoding, or carrying the instructions 916for execution by the machine 900, and includes digital or analogcommunications signals or other intangible media to facilitatecommunication of such software.

Furthermore, the machine-readable medium 938 is non-transitory (in otherwords, not having any transitory signals) in that it does not embody apropagating signal. However, labeling the machine-readable medium 938“non-transitory” should not be construed to mean that the medium isincapable of movement; the medium 938 should be considered as beingtransportable from one physical location to another. Additionally, sincethe machine-readable medium 938 is tangible, the medium 938 may beconsidered to be a machine-readable device.

Language

Throughout this specification, plural instances may implementcomponents, operations, or structures described as a single instance.Although individual operations of one or more methods are illustratedand described as separate operations, one or more of the individualoperations may be performed concurrently, and nothing requires that theoperations be performed in the order illustrated. Structures andfunctionality presented as separate components in example configurationsmay be implemented as a combined structure or component. Similarly,structures and functionality presented as a single component may beimplemented as separate components. These and other variations,modifications, additions, and improvements fall within the scope of thesubject matter herein.

Although an overview of the inventive subject matter has been describedwith reference to specific example embodiments, various modificationsand changes may be made to these embodiments without departing from thebroader scope of embodiments of the present disclosure. Such embodimentsof the inventive subject matter may be referred to herein, individuallyor collectively, by the term “invention” merely for convenience andwithout intending to voluntarily limit the scope of this application toany single disclosure or inventive concept if more than one is, in fact,disclosed.

The embodiments illustrated herein are described in sufficient detail toenable those skilled in the art to practice the teachings disclosed.Other embodiments may be used and derived therefrom, such thatstructural and logical substitutions and changes may be made withoutdeparting from the scope of this disclosure. The Detailed Description,therefore, is not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope ofvarious embodiments is defined only by the appended claims, along withthe full range of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.

As used herein, the term “or” may be construed in either an inclusive orexclusive sense. Moreover, plural instances may be provided forresources, operations, or structures described herein as a singleinstance. Additionally, boundaries between various resources,operations, modules, engines, and data stores are somewhat arbitrary,and particular operations are illustrated in a context of specificillustrative configurations. Other allocations of functionality areenvisioned and may fall within a scope of various embodiments of thepresent disclosure. In general, structures and functionality presentedas separate resources in the example configurations may be implementedas a combined structure or resource. Similarly, structures andfunctionality presented as a single resource may be implemented asseparate resources. These and other variations, modifications,additions, and improvements fall within a scope of embodiments of thepresent disclosure as represented by the appended claims. Thespecification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in anillustrative rather than a restrictive sense.

1. A method comprising: receiving, at a server system, a plurality ofcontent communications comprising content from a plurality of clientdevices, each content communication comprising one or more pieces ofcontent, a location associated with the each piece of the content, and atime associated with each piece of the content; processing, by theserver system, each content communication from the plurality of contentcommunications to determine a set of content characteristics for eachpiece of the content in the plurality of content communications;automatically generating at least a first story, wherein the first storycomprises a first plurality of pieces of the content from the pluralityof content communications, and wherein the first plurality of pieces ofcontent for the first story are selected based on the set of contentcharacteristics for each piece of the content of the first plurality ofpieces of content, the set of content characteristics based on thelocation associated with the content and the time associated with thecontent; associating, by the server system, a visibility of the firststory with a first visibility area associated with the location for eachpiece of the content of the first plurality of pieces of content;communicating the first story to a second plurality of client deviceswithin the first visibility area; analyzing, by the server system, asecond plurality of incoming content messages to determine system trendsassociated with the first story; and adjusting, by the server system,the visibility of the first story to a second visibility area based onthe system trends.
 2. The method of claim 1 wherein the set of contentcharacteristics further comprises: a local content geolocation area; acontent time period; one or more content quality metrics; and one ormore content categories.
 3. (canceled)
 4. (canceled)
 5. The method ofclaim 1 wherein first visibility area is a local geographic area, thesecond visibility area is a regional geographic area comprising aplurality of local geographic areas, and the first visibility area is afirst local geographic area of the plurality of local geographic areaswithin the regional geographic area.
 6. The method of claim 1 whereinthe second visibility area is a local geographic area, the firstvisibility area is a regional geographic area comprising a plurality oflocal geographic areas, and the second visibility area is a first localgeographic area of the plurality of local geographic areas within theregional geographic area.
 7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:receiving, from a first client device, a first client device location;communicating at least two stories to the first client device, whereinthe at least two stories comprise the first story, wherein each of theat least two stories is associated with a visibility area, and whereinthe visibility area for each of the at least two stories encompasses thefirst client device location.
 8. The method of claim 2 furthercomprising, prior to generating the first story: determining, by theserver system, an baseline content receipt rate for a first set ofcontent characteristics; determining, by the server system, that acurrent content receipt rate associated with the first set of contentcharacteristics has deviated from the baseline content receipt rate bymore than a threshold amount; and adjusting a story visibility area forthe first story based on the determination that the current contentreceipt rate for the first set of content characteristics has deviatedfrom the baseline content receipt rate by more than the thresholdamount.
 9. The method of claim 8 further comprising: communicating thefirst story to a first client device based, at least in part, on alocation of the first client device within the story visibility area;receiving, at the server system from the first client device, aselection communication associated with a second piece of content of thefirst story; communicating a second story comprising pieces of contentsharing at least a portion of a set of content characteristics of thesecond piece of content; and communicating the second story to the firstclient device.
 10. The method of claim 9 wherein the second story isgenerated in response to receipt of the selection communication at theserver system.
 11. The method of claim 9 wherein the second story isgenerated and associated with the second piece of content based oncontent characteristics of the second piece of content prior to receiptof the selection communication.
 12. The method of claim 2 wherein theone or more content categories are determined using machine visionprocesses operating as part of the server system to analyze eachreceived content communication.
 13. The method of claim 12 wherein themachine vision processes generate one or more content characteristicvalues for each piece of the content from a content dictionary; andwherein the one or more content categories are determined using thecontent characteristic values for each piece of the content.
 14. Aserver system comprising: a memory; and one or more processors coupledto the memory and configured to: receive a plurality of contentcommunications comprising content from a plurality of client devices,each content communication comprising one or more pieces of content, alocation associated with the content, and a time associated with thecontent; process, each content communication from the plurality ofcontent communications using, at least in part, machine vision todetermine a set of content characteristics for each piece of thecontent; and automatically generate at least a first story, wherein thefirst story comprises a first plurality of pieces of content from theplurality of content communications, and wherein the first plurality ofpieces of content for the first story are selected based on the set ofcontent characteristics for each piece of the content of the firstplurality of pieces of content, the set of content characteristics basedon the location associated with the content and the time associated withthe content; determine a first visibility area for the first story basedon a content origin area associated with the first plurality of piecesof content; analyze a second plurality of incoming content messages todetermine system trends associated with the first story; and determine asecond visibility for the first story based on the system trendsassociated with the first story.
 15. The server system of claim 14wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: receive alocation communication from a first client device identifying a locationof the first client device; determine that the location of the firstclient device is within the first visibility area; and communicate afirst story message associated with the first story to the first clientdevice in response to the determination that the first client device iswithin the first visibility area
 16. The server system of claim 15wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: transmitan application to a first client device of the plurality of clientdevices prior to receiving the plurality of content communications; andstream the first plurality of the pieces of content of the first storyto the first client device in response to an input command received at auser interface of the application operating on the first client device.17. The server system of claim 15 wherein the input command comprises acontinuous touch input received at a touchscreen display of the firstclient device selecting the first story.
 18. A non-transitory computerreadable medium comprising computer readable instructions that, whenexecuted by one or more processors cause a server system to: receive aplurality of content communications comprising content from a pluralityof client devices, each content communication comprising at least onepiece of content, a location associated with the at least one piece ofcontent, and a time associated with the at least one piece of content;process, each content communication from the plurality of contentcommunications using, at least in part, machine vision to determine aset of content characteristics for each piece of the content; andautomatically generate at least a first story, wherein the first storycomprises a first plurality of pieces of content from the plurality ofcontent communications, and wherein the first plurality of pieces ofcontent for the first story are selected based on the set of contentcharacteristics for each piece of the content of the first plurality ofpieces of content; associate a visibility of the first story with afirst visibility area; and communicate the first story to a plurality ofclient devices within the first visibility area; analyze a plurality ofincoming pieces of content to determine system trends associated withthe first story; and adjust the visibility of the first story to asecond visibility area.
 19. (canceled)
 20. The non-transitory computerreadable medium of claim 19 wherein the set of content characteristicsfor each piece of the content comprises: a local content geolocationarea; a content time period; and one or more content categoriesdetermined from a machine vision analysis of each piece of the content.21. The method of claim 1 wherein the location associated with the eachpiece of the content comprises a corresponding location where each pieceof content was generated.
 22. The method of claim 1 wherein thecorresponding location where each piece of content was generated isdetermined based on a global positioning system (GPS) measurementperformed by a corresponding device of the plurality of client devices.